how to make white car shine

[bodger]

my e30 is alpine white and when i bought it it had been stood in a barn for 18 months so as u can imagine it looks matt white and just generally shite, is there any quick way to make it shine like a good un, what about having it buffed professionally, or is it a g3 and tcut job .ive tried this on a scrap bootlid and it did come up ok but just not as deep shine as i wanted

[Morat]

It won't shine like black... but I did get good results with the Meguiars 3 Step kit. (Starting with the clay bar after a good wash). If its really bad you might be looking at something more aggressive. I even tried a 200grit wet and dry sanding block/foam sponge thing on a spare tailgate and it came up really fresh. I'm not recommending that though, I think it could go horribly wrong.

[e30den]

getting it buffed will do the trick g3 then g10 and finished with a sealant, try jetseal 109, good stuff

[ShineOn]

I hope to god you don't mean 200 grit, that would be back to bare metal in 3 strokes

Megs 3 step is likely to utterly useless - The paint cleanser (step 1) might remove a little of the chemical oxidiation, but not a lot else. Step 2 is not an abrasive polish, is has no cut at all. Step 3 is just a rubbish wax.

If you're not prepared to get it professionally machined, look forward to some serious elbow grease with the Farecla products, you'll get somewhere with those. Bu I'd suggest you look for a someone who knows how to use a machine polisher to give it a good going over - should only need to be done once then you can maintain it. Its the only way to get the finish you're after. Do the prep work, i.e. wash & clay for them, just get someone to do the machine work and that should keep the cost to a minimum.

Chemical Guys Jetseal 109 would be an excellent product to finish with.

[fowler]

for oxicidation on the paint i used a mix of truck wash and normal car shampoo and it took most of the rubbish off
then i used several diffrent products but this eems to take most of the muck off as mine had been in a workshop for 12 months

[Kos]

white cars can shine, when i first bought my IS it was faded to f**k .

G10, and autoglym bought it back to it former glory, its hard work and takes time

check out the relfection of the advertising boards on the car

[B7]

Kos is spot on. To say it won't shine like black is also a valid comment. It will reflect an image exactly the same as any other colour with the same amount of glossy finish. It's just unfortunate that for us white owners, that the colour just doesn't show the reflection as well as a darker colour and so the human eye has to look harder.

As to the original question, It all depends on what you want to achieve. If you want the satisfaction of saying that YOU transformed the car (as I would) then start with the basics, t Cut and a good wax for example, just to see what you can acheive yourself with a bit of hard work. If however you want a show car then go down the road suggested by others above every time.

None of my cars ever see a clay bar, 3g product, farecla product, machine polisher, maguirs this or that. When I bought the white Cab I just used good old T Cut and the Autoglym products that I always use. And I think Kos will back me up, it looks pretty good and regularly gets the comment (how do you acheive such a clean car?) at guildford, gaydon etc.

Here a couple of mine. Admitedly not great photos as I've had to crop normal day to day shots to get the areas to show but that goes in hand with the above.

[ric325i]

i had a white e30 and it was a bit shabby top start with and then after some good scrubbing it came up really nice!

a white e30 is porn.


i have just bought a fadded yellow Volvo adn im going to get some very gritty stuff from helfrauds and buff it in.
T-cut is good but you can get stuff more intense and get a good layer of paint off

just scrub like a bit#h

[Morat]

hmm, 200 grit must be wrong then - sorry
It was a very fine abrasive, I clearly don't know what grade it was. Got it from Halfrauds for a tenner and used on a tailgate I got from a breakers which had had some sort of tape put over the seal between the bottom edge of the window and the metal. (totally useless, there was still rust in the groove under the seal). By the time I'd finished you'd never have know that there had been grim tape stains and adhesive all along one edge of the panel.

My point really is that the paint on these cars is pretty thick and you can use a mild abrasive on white to take off the crud because its a flat colour. Don't get carried away!

Meguiars 3 step works, but its very labour intensive. I can't comment on the wax, but I think I'll try zaino daily driver stuff next time - my cars live outdoors and get driven a lot.

[fuzzy]

is there ant less labour and time intensive methods to get a good shine? i always start with good intentions of washing,polishing etc but as soon as i do the first wipe with the sponge i lose interest and give up as easily as the french army.

[B7]

is there ant less labour and time intensive methods to get a good shine? i always start with good intentions of washing,polishing etc but as soon as i do the first wipe with the sponge i lose interest and give up as easily as the french army.

No in the short answer. Been in the polishing mode since I was abot 10 when I asked big Bro if I could help. "yeah, grab that autosol and get on the wheels". 3 days later his 5.5"j x 13 Cosmic Mk2's were sparkling!!!!

I'm 43 now and have yet to find a "magic" fast way to restoring paintwork.

[d6dph]

No shortcuts Fuzzy, But if you get it to a good finish it is merely maintenance from there.

[gareth]

dave, in answer to your question last night, i made my touring slightly less matt with meguiars stage 2 stuff and found it pretty naff. i should have started with stage 1 and worked through them all. still not overly impressed with it all-in.

i'm still fond of t-cut and a tub of turtle wax i tent to have to get really tired cars looking good quite often!

i found some nasties while polishing my poor wagon yesterday, it's been polished so many times on the roof that it's gone thing, opaque and porous in some areas i guess it's gone matt white and been cut back a few times too many

[fuzzy]

couple of poles on a fiver an hour it is then.

[gareth]

it's the way forward!

or just get dave to do it!

[dimebag_from_hell]

[Dan320is]

Clay bar & Autoglym super resin to get the paint clean and to create a glossy deep shine and then Zymol cleaner wax to top up when I feel like it.

[DanThe]

Is this a white car whoring session?

[Chris-W]

hmm, 200 grit must be wrong then - sorry

It will have been 2000, Miles